A few days after a high school acquaintance, Christine Blasey Ford, accused Brett M. Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers, we were unexpectedly pulled into the coverage of his confirmation to the United States Supreme Court. Initially, it was because of personal connections to the judge: Kate grew up in Washington, D.C., not far from his childhood home, and attended a sister high school there. Robin was in his undergraduate class at Yale.

Because of that, we focused our reporting on those different chapters of Justice Kavanaugh’s youth — Kate on his high school years, which produced stories about his yearbook and a 1983 letter planning for a raucous week at the beach; Robin on the allegations regarding his college behavior, including the story of Deborah Ramirez, who said Justice Kavanaugh exposed himself in front of her at a dorm party.

When the judge was confirmed to the high court on Oct. 6, many observers felt as if the process had halted abruptly. The final Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where he had testified — in which an anxious Dr. Blasey and a furious Judge Kavanaugh left vivid impressions — had inflamed tensions in a culture already riven by #MeToo and partisan politics. A weeklong F.B.I. investigation into the assault allegations, called unexpectedly by a Republican senator who had been confronted by a sexual-assault survivor in an elevator, was regarded by many as too short and too limited in scope to quell doubts about the judge’s character as a young man.

“The dozens of witnesses to Kavanaugh’s drunken behaviors through high school, college and law school,” wrote one reader in the comments of a Times article after Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation, “should have been, and still should be, interviewed, thoroughly investigated, and their observations reported on.”

In the absence of a longer inquiry, United States citizens have made their feelings known at the ballot box, on social media, and in Washington, where protesters have visited the Capitol and the Supreme Court. The Kavanaugh confirmation loomed over the midterm elections, seeming to lift Republican candidates to victory in some reliably red states and buttressing support for the judge’s critics in others. Meanwhile, the national judicial system itself is under scrutiny, as President Trump has suggested that judges are politically motivated, a charge that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has publicly denied.

Amid the continued controversy, we are mining our notebooks and our contact lists for people and documents to help us better understand the newest justice and what the fight over his confirmation says about our current cultural moment.

We’re writing a book, “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh,” to be published by Portfolio, an imprint of the Penguin Random House publishing group, that will focus on Justice Kavanaugh’s school years, going deeper into those formative chapters of his life and examining more closely how they came to bear on his battle for a seat on the Supreme Court.

For instance, Justice Kavanaugh has described himself in high school as a hard-working scholar, athlete and churchgoer — a contrast to some classmates’ recollections of him as an arrogant party boy, prone to binge drinking. We’ll explore both depictions, as well as the question of how his early experiences shaped his future as a lawyer and, later, a judge.

As we try to uncover new details, we could become targets of the same passions that drove people to speak out both for and against Justice Kavanaugh. Already the ugly tweets have started coming in, an indication of the polarized world in which we’re operating.

“Grats on the money grab,” wrote one person in response to our book announcement. Others have suggested we title the book “The Smear” or “The Crucible.” And those were some of the more restrained comments.

There are tens of thousands of pages of opinions and other records to read, as well as 1980s-era photographs and documents to review. Dozens of people have direct knowledge of Justice Kavanaugh’s educational years, and many are still in touch with him. We want to sit down with both his advocates and his detractors, former classmates and teammates as well as current close friends who can help us fill out an incomplete picture.

Many of those we encountered in the course of our Times reporting were left with a sense of confusion, or even loss, over the volatile political process. Better understanding that process — and the person at the center of it — is the work ahead of us.

Keep up with Times Insider stories on Twitter, via the Reader Center: @ReaderCenter.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: We’re Still Investigating Kavanaugh. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe